All People

Abstract

In early March 2020, the March-April Hastings Center Report was very nearly assembled and contained nothing about Covid-19, which was still just beginning to make itself publicly known in the United States. Two weeks later, the editorial line-up was undergoing a remix, and essays that lay out sweeping agendas for the response to the worldwide crisis were in preparation. The central theme in the agenda that Lawrence O. Gostin and colleagues develop is that the pandemic requires a sharp break from usual ethical norms yet simultaneously demands a return to core ethical commitments. A similar theme is sounded by Mildred Z. Solomon and colleagues in a commentary calling for federal actions to keep the health care system functioning. Other essays in the issue take up an assortment of topical issues-including international patient dumping-that were simmering along prior to the pandemic, and the two articles take up foundational questions about the nature of moral reasoning.

Keywords: Covid-19; moral reasoning; novel coronavirus pandemic; public health ethics; reasonable person standard.